Govt moves to curb cassava disease outbreak in Mara

Tanzania is among five countries in Africa to be covered by a new project to curb the spread of a disease lethal to the vital maize crop in sub-Saharan Africa.

The government has ordered for breathalysers and more speed guns for use by the traffic department to check rising cases of road accidents across the country.

>The government has banned witchcraft-related activities and launched a special operation to arrest those linked with the practice.  The move comes after a four-year-old girl was abducted in Mwanza and amid a rise in attacks on albinos.

Nyanja Division in Butiama District, Mara Region is facing an acute food crisis as a result of a disease that has hit the staple food for thousands of residents, Cassava.

Cassava is one of the important staple food crops that are grown in Mara Region. Together with other crops like sorghum, maize and sweet potatoes, cassava has been playing an exceptional role in dealing with hunger or food shortages.

The Zanzibar government is to put in place a public service code of ethics law in a bid to curb abuse of public office.

The district council here has revealed a strategy that would be applied to curb absenteeism in primary schools.

>Over 520 hectares of maize have been affected by lethal necrosis disease(LND) in Tarime District, Mara Region and the  report released by the agriculture and irrigation department shows that 16 out of the district’s  24 wards are deeply affected.

Ms. Joyce Mends-Cole, the UNHCR Representative in Tanzania.
Burundian families who fled their country wait to be registered as refugees at Nyarugusu camp in northwest Tanzania on June 11, 2015. (Aglietti / AFP / Getty Images).
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Health Organization appeal for calm amid reports of the death of a Burundian refugee, suspected to have contracted the Ebola virus, in Kigoma region in North West Tanzania. The reports emanated...